I just bought a 2002 Prius on Monday. It has 59000 miles on it, nav, front side airbags, 6 disc cd changer. I love it so far. after putting almost 250K miles on my Explorer it was time to get something to make the 80 mile a day commute less expensive. This morning was it's first trip to work, and of course for the first time in months traffic was light. It didn't come with a manual for the nav system. I let my 9 yr. old son sit in the front in the driveway and push buttons to help me learn what does what. He was so excited when he found his favorite hot dog stand listed in the POI. I'm sure it will do alot more than we've found so far.

Mike

 

Welcome!

you are in a nexus of hypermiling talent- look up tbaleno, and he can get you together with many others between Chicago and Milwaukee who regularly get together!

likewise, bwilson4web is our resident Prius I (pre-2004) guru. Have fun looking around and learning!

 

Hi Mike,

Lucky duck! I bought my 03 Prius last October with 49,300 miles and no nav. I paid $17,300 for mine, how did you do?

By all means, take a look at the mileage database and consider adding your car. This is a great way to track your progress as you learn to become a hyper-miler master. Over in the Prius forum, we have a FAQ with some of the collected wisdom on how to achieve hyper-miler status.

Will you be doing your own maintenance or still take it to the dealer? The reason I ask is we're seeing some indication that the transaxle oil wears out faster than the Toyota recommended interval, 60,000 miles. If the transaxle oil has not been changed, yet, I would like to share some of our lesson's learned:

http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/pri_T_cold.html
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/pri_toil.html

For a first change, I'd like a sample of the old oil, for testing and strongly recommend that you have the service department (or yourself) drop the pan and wipe clean all surfaces. The Prius transaxle does not have an oil filter, just an oil pickup screen. If you do it yourself, it is ~$50. If a shop does it, make sure they include the $9 for the pan gasket and $3 for the "o" ring. Don't do my mistake and just drain the oil and not clean the pan on the first change.

Regardless, welcome and GOOD LUCK!!

Bob Wilson

 

Congrats on the new hybrid! I hope you love your car, and welcome to the unofficial Chicago group on greenhybrid. Whenever I travel to the coasts (this weekend it was DC) I'm always blown away by the number of hybrids I see on the roads, and when I come back to the Chicago area, it's really clear that they haven't caught on as much here. Did you get your Prius from a local? Or are you bringing a 'new' Prius to our area? Either way, welcome, and I hope you enjoy the site. Maybe I'll see you driving by some day, and if you happen to notice the hybrid decal on my HCH, you won't be confused when I wave.

 

Thanks.

Bob, I got it for 14600 plus tax and all that stuff. I'll do as much of the maintainanc as I can myself. I don't know if the transaxle oil has been changed yet. If it hasn't I'll do it soon, and would be glad to send you a sample of it when I change it. I checked out your web site and you have a lot of really good information there. The kind of technical stuff I like.

gonavy, I'll get hold of tbleno and see what's going on in the area here.

leahbeatle, In oticed that when I was lookng to buy one, that there were tons of them in CA and out east and not too many around here. I got it from a local dealer. Where are you at in the chicago area?

Mike

 

Antioch is a little out of my usual range, but if you ever drive through the Schaumburg area, where I work, we might breeze by each other. When I was hybrid shopping at area dealers, I didn't see one used hybrid for sale- this was last year- so I'm impressed that you managed it- lucky you! Buying a hybrid for under $15k is a fantastic deal.

I like my 2005, however, and I think it compares pretty well to the 2006 for the price, so I'm glad I didn't wait for the new model, plus buying used cars, hybrid or not, has some risk involved, even if I could have found one. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with all that. Take a look around the site and you'll find scads of technical stuff, if that's what you're looking for, and there are a lot of knowledgable posters here who can answer your questions, if you run into anything troublesome or interesting.

Again, welcome.